No deal on citizenship solution

MALCOLM Turnbull and Bill Shorten have failed to come to an agreement on how to end the citizenship saga before Christmas.

The two leaders were locked in talks for two hours yesterday but were unable to reach an agreement.

Both leaders agreed all MPs must fully disclose their status before the end of the year, so any outstanding citizenship cases could be referred to the High Court before Christmas.

Mr Turnbull pushed for a plan to give MPs 21 days to disclose their status.

“The Australian public are entitled to know that everybody that is sitting in the parliament is entitled to sit there,” Mr Turnbull said.

Resolving the citizenship saga was an “urgent, pressing issue,” he said.

He admitted it may even be necessary to recall parliament for an extra sitting day to consider MPs’ disclosures and whether it was necessary to refer anyone to the High Court.

Mr Turnbull said that he believed at least one Labor MP would need to be referred to the High Court.

Tasmanian Labor MP Justine Keay has admitted she did not receive confirmation of her renunciation of her British citizenship until after she was elected in July 2016.

“If she wishes to maintain her position in the parliament and not resign, that’s going to involve some considerable legal debate,” Mr Turnbull said.

“I think the High Court’s been very clear on the matter in the recent decision.”

But he said Liberal backbencher John Alexander would not be referred until he received confirmation that he was a British citizen by descent.

“He’s conducting his own research at the moment and I’ll leave that to him,” Mr Turnbull said.

Mr Shorten rejected Mr Turnbull’s plan to give MPs 21 days to disclose their citizenship status and has instead proposed politicians be given a deadline of December 1.

He did not like the suggestion that parliament could be recalled in the week before Christmas to resolve any outstanding citizenship issues, saying it should be dealt with in the final four sitting days of the year.

He said Labor wanted the issue resolved “as soon as possible”.

“We want to sharpen up the Prime Minister’s resolution and make sure it is fool proof,” he said.

“There’s no point in constructing a net which has more holes in it.”

Hitting back at Mr Turnbull’s concerns about Ms Keay, Mr Shorten denied any Labor MP would be caught up in the citizenship review.